What Difference Does the Title Make?
by TheBroadwaywannabe
Summary: "Rebellious." A term he acted aloof to but truly relished in, its ability to solidify his apparent "uniqueness" as fact. He liked to believe he wasn't another teenaged cliché, though maybe that's all he was. Dylan centric. Twisted themes and language.
1. Chapter 1

What Difference Does the Title Make? 

**(A/n)** First South Park fic. Hopefully unique, likely not. I'm sure I'm just tottallllyyy persuading you to read this with my evident enthusiasm right now. I haven't slept in a few days and there's no more coffee. Woop-dee-fucking-da. This first chapter breaks every single 'Show, don't tell' rule in existence, and I really don't give a shit because I wanted to get a foundation out of the way before starting, and god fucking damnit, this is how I chose to do so. I have no beta, I do my best. I kind of really enjoy feedback, so feel free. I have about 546789 multi-chapters going on and have updated non in 45678 years. Fun. I already have the next chapter of this mostly written, however, the fucking over-achiever I am, so.

Goth kids, Dylan (' Red Goth') centric. For those who don't know. Evan= Curly Goth Georgie= Kinder Goth and Henrietta is just…Henrietta. Yeah. You'll get used to the format soon. Enjoy and all that jazz. Weeee.

**We Build, and Then we Break. **

We build, and then we break.

At least, that's the way in which he always saw it. Though he was a bit of a hopeless pessimist -or possibly realist, dependent upon who you asked- so his observations may not have been as objective as 'fact' is presumed to be. Regardless, his own disposition was not capable of entirely clouding his perception of the world, and he had always seen it happen. He always saw it happen, we build and break and though the wording may not be the most modest nor devoid of all hints of melodrama, he occasionally found himself lacking any other way to say things.

Dylan tended to acknowledge things like this, the things others tend not to notice, not in the same ways, and therefore often had a mind clouded with ceaseless thought and observation and a tendency to never sleep and fail classes. He thought too much and pondered to much and refused to partake in the world as others conventionally expected him to. All of which may, admittedly, have been a contributing factors as to why he had always been perceived as "weird", as no one could ever quit figure out what the Hell he was thinking. Though he knew better than to search for specifics characteristics and aspects as to why he was considered off, or why he tended not to get a long with the world, or why the kids in school generally waned away from him. He knew he just was as he was. He willingly acknowledged what just was existed as a whole and not as specific after specific. And so, he accepted that he was just weird and peculiar and didn't quite fit and was an odd one out and a freak, because he always had been and always would be. Which was not to say that he felt any particular sense of dissent or resentment toward his oddity- there was always that slight feeling of satisfaction that stirred in him when some punk looked at him on the street and whispered fiercely to his buddy " dude, look at that guy, he's _scary"_ or when his aunt gave him that disapproving look of 'where did we go wrong?' or he heard the kids in his class talking about 'That freak Goth kid'. Despite his utter discontent with conventionality and conformity, he sometimes purposely adhered to typical Gothic clichés and stereotypes for the pure amusing irony of it all. The concept of conforming to not conforming just struck him as far too humorous an opportunity to pass up, even if he was the only one around to truly appreciate his own lame joke. He'd always supposed being acknowledged as a distinctly different figure, regardless of by option or not, was an ultimately positive thing and had never actually caused him much more grief than he would have otherwise brought upon himself. At 5'10" with black polish on his nails and a few too many piercing in his face, one could not really argue as to Dylan's proneness and tendency to stick out in a group, and his disposition often proved bitter and hard, because he really didn't like people anyway.

In his early years, this inevitably had led him to be a loner, his younger brother later proving a sufficient, if aloof, companion whenever the need arose. They had always gotten along well enough, and Dylan couldn't help but often wonder why Georgie had grown to be so similar to his own self in interest and 'taste'. Weather it just was Georgie's own natural way of being, oddity running in the family like some abnormal gene mutation, or the mere fact that he was raised around and influenced by Dylan for the general entirety of his life was always a question. A case of nature vs. nurture at it's purest, and Dylan was vaguely sure that Georgie's ways were a mixture of both, meaning quite a compatible presence to have about. And, yet, due to the drastic age difference, Gerorgie was not always available, and Dylan, much to his own contentment if not indifference, was often left to spend lunch and free periods alone, resting his back upon the stark brick wall and chain smoking as many cancer sticks as he could manage. Isolation had always been his thing, and if he had to lurk about the back of the school at the risk of being caught by some self-righteous, self proclaimed authority of a Hall Monitor, so be it. No on had ever gone out of their way to interact with him in any ways but what were necessary, and it had long since been made apparent that any attempts at interaction would be hostility shot down His presence had never been considered one of significance, and, therefore, no one had ever felt any inclination to bother him or make any attempts at conversation by any means. He'd been smoking against that back wall nearly every day since the age of eight, and a single individual had never approached him within that span of time. So, he could not say that he was entirely unfazed nor lacking any sense of surprise when one day, while taking a long drag off his cigarette and contemplating the god forsaken weather of the shitty mountain town, he was started out of his resentful musing by an unfamiliar voice.

"Got a light?"

Tainted by obvious years of smoking and a past contentious effort of suppressing the valley girl accent that still managed to bleed mutedly through, the voice was, undoubtedly female, and succeeded in startling the shit out of him. He'd actually taken a moment to recollect himself- physically jumping like a pussy-ass was not the best first impression he was capable of making. Upon finally looking up, he had been greeted by the sight of a short, considerably overweight female, clad entirely in black and holding a slender smoke between her fingers. She gazed down icily, monotonously, yet, expectantly at him, taping her left foot impatiently against the concrete. Realizing that she had, indeed, asked him a question, Dylan had proceeded to pull out his lighter from his back pocket, and held it to the tip of the cigarette grasped between her pale, pale fingers. She had mumbled a vague sound of appreciation, and nonchalantly taken it upon herself to settle down beside him, as if such an action was entirely typical of her. He stiffened a little, human interaction not being a familiar concept to him, even at that point, and had stolen another glance at her. She was focused on something off in the distance, and he decided that yes, they may just get along, because she seemed pretty fucking cool, assuming that she was truly as hardcode as she appeared. Another thing he had always been abnormally aware as to- people's tendency to live with an entirely fake exterior - facades.

"You wanna hang out?" it had been sudden yet, somehow, he may have expected it. She followed this by a long drag off her smoke, not yet bothering to shift her gaze from the negative space staring pointedly back at her and he thought that she had this whole 'aloof' thing down pretty damn well.

"Doubtlessly"

And so their twosome had become three, Georgie more or less accepting the addition with a non-committal grunt of assumed approval and the lighting of a smoke. Despite the general anti-social nature of each individual, and their accustomedness to a life devoid of human interaction, they proved a compatible and, eventually, irrespirable group. Henrietta was a strong headed, out-spoken girl, prone to fits of spontaneous anger and who tended to smoke maybe a little too much. She may have appeared non-approachable and cold, but to those closest to her, she proved to be a go-to type of confident, a relaxed figure, one may even have ventured to call her 'sweet', had the word not implied such a generally pleasant all around existence. Dylan felt an abnormal sense of comfort with her more liberally friendly ways, likely because he was not accustomed to associating with females, and took some solace in the fact that he had someone he could at least mildly let his guard down around. Not only was Henrietta female and, in turn, did not feel inclined to act 'not like a fag, dude', but she was also a bit of an oblivious character as well, at least in regards to Dylan's well being, and he didn't exactly have to put extra effort into his façade around her to keep her questioning at bay. He could allow an expression to be pulled, an exasperated sigh to be hissed out every now and again, and not have to worry about a question, a second glance, a suspicion being stirred. I was not that she was dumb or unintelligent or abnormally unobservant by any means, she sometimes bit out remarks and observation that shocked him, attributing it to "female second sense", she simply tended to be a bit less prone to picking up subtleties. She was yet another commoner under his spell, and he couldn't blame her, because he was a damn good liar, the king of facades, and he knew it. Sometimes he hated it, and usually he loved it and sometimes he wished he wasn't, but he knew that he was the best. Regardless, they moved on in their relatively feigned content-ness for a while, hanging around Denny's, drinking coffee, writing poetry, smoking in each other's rooms, scaring the shit out of Henrietta's little brother, doing what they did and being as alright with it as they could muster. They fucking hated everyone and hated their peers and hated school and hated conformist South Park and hated society, but each other's presence made it all a bit easier to stomach, and made the mere fact of existing in South Park a bit more bearable.

And then, along came Evan.

Towering at about 6 foot a million and exhaling smoke that curled up smoothly around his face and weaved it's way through unruly, coiled hair, he immediately drew attention in whatever environment he happened to appear. Black over-coat, black pants, black eyeliner, and a fondness for biting sarcasm, the boy proved an ideal addition to the group, appearing spontaneously one bleakly, uninterestingly cold day in February. He had trudged into homeroom late, trailing flakes of snow and the smell of burnt cigarettes and dead earth along with him, and plopped himself into a seat at the back of the class. The teacher had acknowledged him with no more than a grunt, turning uninterestedly back to his magazine as the rest of the children tried not to make it obvious that they were, in fact, staring. A few mumbles of "great, another faggy goth kid" and "where the fuck did this fairy come from" managed their way around the room before the bell had signaled the end of the period, and every one quickly dispersed into the hallways. Dylan hadn't been able to help throwing an extra glance or two at the new kid, immediately becoming interested with this dissimilar and mysterious figure. It wasn't every day he got the opportunity to meet a new non-conformist.

The rest of that, otherwise, seemingly insignificant day had passed as any other would have, the New Kid appearing every now and again to receive a vague grunt of approval and, now familiar, murmur of "Jesus Christ, not another fucking one" from each indifferent teacher. Dylan had to admit that his interested grew throughout the day, this new presence providing him something fresh to mule over during his pointless classes, as opposed to the nonsensical dribble he conventionally pondered. Yes, fabricating possibilities as to WHERE this new kid could possibly have come from did prove a considerable amount more interesting than contemplating, for the thousandth time, what would kill him faster- a pencil or safety scissors- were he to stab them through his eye amidst the drawl ramblings of his math teacher. And when Dylan happened to overhear a bitter relation of "conformist" escape the boy's lips after some jock-ass-meat-head had pushed past him in the hall, he KNEW that there was no way in Hell that The Kid could fit anywhere better than in their group. And, apparently, the New Kid thought so as well. For, no later than an hour after school had let out and a half after Dylan had ordered his black coffee from the Bitch at Denny's, the metal glass door of the nearly vacant restaurant has swung open , and, there, indicating absolutely no sense of hesitance or feeling of misplacement, stood Newbie. His eyes had roamed over the sparse amount of patrons for a few moments, before resting upon the black clad threesome. He had then nonchalantly stopped a waitress on her way back, to what was presumably, the kitchen, demanded something along the lines of a "large, black coffee" and then made his way over to their signature booth, and plopped down amongst them, as if he had been doing this very act every day of his life. A sudden silence then followed, as Henri looked at Georgie who looked at Dylan who was raising his eyebrow at The Kid. And, being the first to recover from the moment, Dylan had turned to The Kid, quirked his lip into something dangerously resembling a smile and said simply-

"Henrietta, Georgie, and Dylan" and The Kid had relaxed back into his seat, almost-smiled in a nearly arrogant manner, and responded easily, in a deep voice muddled by natural tread and the strain of cigarettes,

"Evan."

And so life had gone on, the group feeling completed at the nice, even number of four. Dylan very much appreciated the presence of another male his age, probably more so than he would ever be willing to entirely admit, and the two soon proved an inspirable pair, best friends or _whatever_, he supposed they would be classified as, if they were into using conformist labels like that. Evan proved an outwardly confident figure, occasionally even vain or arrogant, to those who didn't know him any better. His frequent sarcasm proved biting, though he may have appeared one of the more approachable of the group, and he had a bit of a tendency to be the cooler, more indifferent - not level headed, God, no- character out of the four. Where as Henrietta proved fiery and spiteful, Gerogie dark and brooding, and Dylan.. well, he didn't know, ( Henri had one dubbed him " sporadic, spontaneous and a fucking mess" whatever that was supposed to mean) Evan proved icy, indifferent and cold. Shut out and detached as Hell. Which probably would have bothered Dylan less than it did, had he not so feverishly wished he, himself, was like that, as opposed to the ragged, uncontrollable, messy, sporadic, explosive ways he was wont to adhere to.

And yet, regardless of all their differing states of mind and the ways in which they interacted with the world, a general air of resentment, dark indifference and pessimism lingered amongst them, making ideal company for one another. Though the group had long since grown out of the Pre-pubescent drama they had once indulged in- the writing of 'dark, deep' poetry (which they now dubbed queer and somewhat embarrassing), the abuse of the word 'conformist' and terms such as Britney and Ken wannabes' (though they still did, on occasion, come into play), their constant, pestering whining about 'death and despair and life and the world are just so pointless and I'm depressed and dark and hate everything wa wa wa' (which they now found disgustingly melodramatic and acknowledged as young ignorance) they still proved an unconventional and relatively unsettling bunch of people to be around. They still, in spite of being 16 and now capable of, legally, (though that'd never stopped them before) driving to greater places, hung out at Denny's, drinking six dollars worth of black coffee, delivered by that old stick-up-the-ass-bitch who should've been dead by then. They still liked to lurk about in Henrietta's black draped bedroom, picking at dried out oatmeal cookies her overbearing mother shoved down their throats, along with the sunshine she shoved up their asses. They still smoked at their signature spot behind the school, and still had to remind Dylan that yes, dude, you need to re-dye the streak in your hair soon; it looks pink. They were still rebellious, brooding and generally sarcastic out-casts, and still caught the tail ends of the exasperated sighs hissed out by their parents as they floated past with freshly painted nails and the smell of smoke muted by Febreeze in a half-assed way. They were still weird.

And Dylan was fucking, undeniably, blatantly and exceedingly weird, as he always had been. He'd never really honestly cared nor regarded it all that much, to the extent that he could remember. Though maybe, in all honest truth, he'd never actually had the choice. He just WAS unconventional, an outcast, weird, odd, and that was that. Maybe it was because, at age two he preferred to dress up in woman's clothing, if he did at all, because clothes burned his skin. And at age three his mommy acted funny a lot and he had to learn to treat wounds better than most people ever did and at age four the fuckin' scary 'air monsters' wouldn't stop lurking in his room and he kept pissing the bed. Maybe it was because at five when he couldn't eat his chicken nuggets unless he aligned them in perfectly in neat, specific rows by size and took exactly 8 bites out of each, though he never finished them anyway. Maybe it was because he punched holes in walls at six and cried even more when he was hit and told to stop, because boys don't cry. Maybe because at seven he had the bags of a thirty year old under his eyes and tended to maim his fellow classmates when forced to come in contact, though he was selectively mute over half of the year. Maybe at eight, because he was already smoking a pack a day, and used words like 'conformist' and dressed all in black and wore eyeliner and painted his nails. Maybe at nine, because he knew how to cook, because he had to do it for himself a lot of the time, and maybe because he read and said weird things that the other kids didn't understand. And ten, because he never slept and shook a lot and just couldn't pass a class because he just couldn't pay attention and tended to spend his time sitting in the empty window sill (ripped out the screen) of the second story boy's bathroom. Or eleven, when he refused to go to school, nor leave his room for days- not because he hated it (which he did) but because he just Couldn't and couldn't say WHY. Maybe at twelve because blood tended to seep through his shirt sleeves and angry red slashes adorned his wrists/arms, exposed in his gym uniform (because he didn't CARE) and because of the oddly shaped bruise or burn or two that sat exposed as well. At 13, because he hung out with a little kid and a girl all the time and looked about as pale and thin as a skeleton, where as the other boys hit puberty and grew the fuck up and filled out. At fourteen, when he told a teacher to 'fuck off' and set the science lab on fire and skipped class and gratified "cock sucker" on the principle's wall and lit up cigarettes/slept in class and didn't show up/came late and didn't do work and skipped detention and STILL didn't give a shit. Or at fifteen when he didn't sleep for days at a time and shook uncontrollably all day and was still a-scared of the dark and his mother was seen passed out on the pool table at the local bar. Or when he won that dumb shit game in language arts and stated that he 'couldn't eat the reward cupcake. Didn't she get it, he literally couldn't eat it' and was seen pealing out of the school parking lot, Evan riding shot gun, blaring music that no one liked. Or the times he randomly uped and walked out of class and disappeared or the time he ran away for well over a week. Or maybe at 16. Well, of fucking course at 16. That's where he was now.

16 and stick- like with nasty caffeine and nicotine addictions and a secret collection of classical music stacked in the back of his closet. He had eyes that were dead in the same sense as a dormant volcano or the last amber from a cigarette, battling to stay lit and refusing to die long after it had been tapped away and the rest had smoldered out and the darkness has begun to push on it. A muted sort of dead-but-not-quite, dull shell wall that couldn't quite brig itself to look stinging, yet couldn't melt to be less than cold. Yet, the subconscious attempts to pass them off as entirely blank was nothing less than pathetic- like pulling a thin projection screen, originally intended to be translucent, down in an attempt to hide a blazing fire. He wore long sleeved shirts in the 90 degree summer, screamed and thrashed and sprouted bruises in his sleep, which he didn't bother to do anyway, and didn't fucking think before he did a thing. Hell, he didn't think at all. And he was a spontaneous little SOB that no one fucking GOT. He did crazy, spur of the moment shit, speeding out and getting a lip piercing at the 24 hour saloon around 3 a.m, 'cause the mood had just kinda hit him right. Taking a sharp, sudden left just as the school was spinning into view, causing Evan to fly against the side of the car, and stating "fuck this, we're going to the city today". The unexpected was essentially expected of him at that point, and no one was really ever surprised with the fact that he had done something or another, just what he actually did. Rebellious was his thing and he sure as fuck liked to demonstrate it. Everyone likes to believe they're different, so he supposed when he heard the disapproving snides of " rebellious" pass some stick-up-the-arse idiot's mouth, he couldn't help but relish in it. The word provided a sort of solidification, reassurance that his own 'uniqueness' wasn't solely in his head. He _was _rebellious, said and did what he wanted and didn't give a shit. A memorable example of this being one Tuesday, on a rare occasion of publicly deviating from the stereotype he was commonly associated with, in which he had protested the banning of a book ( The Outsiders, for fuck's sake, 'too many drug references and swear words'), thrown himself upon a desk, standing tall in front of the entire class and launching into a loud, passionate protest/speech. Everyone has just stared in shock, Evan sitting back smoothly, nonchalantly in his seat and allowing that perpetually unfazed, arrogant, cool and, now, amused half-almost-smile of his to slide across his face.

''…..And, I mean, for fuck's sake!" Dylan had continued, reaching back and fumbling about in his back pocket for something " Get it through your thick heads. Censoring the fucking SHIT out of everything and turning our fucking heads doesn't make it magically go away. It's not just NOT there because you like to have us cover our eyes with our hands. I don't know what shit you've been smoking, but wake the fuck up, Dorothy, cause we ain't in OZ, and closing our eyes and clicking our heels isn't going to make it all a dream. And guess the fuck what, geniuses? You and I and everyone all know that you aren't doing SHIT for us, and I hope you realize how utterly POINTLESS this is anyway, because GUESS WHAT? There are PLENTY of drugs we ALL do, there isn't a single one if us in here who doesn't sprinkle every sentence with a nice array of "fucks". GET REAL, and pull your heads outta your goddamn asses. You cannot just look away and look away and fucking pretend and pretend. The real world doesn't WORK like that, said the TEENAGER to the ADULTS. What's so DAMN hard and terrible and utterly impossible about LOOKING, huh? The TRUTH. How about THIS, huh? Can you see this?" At that, he had fumbled out and lit a cigarette, holding it out pointedly towards the teacher's face and promptly sticking it into his mouth, taking a long drag and wishing he had something with more shock value, like meth or crack or at least pot " I'm, ohh emmm geeezzz, GASP, SMOKING! Do you SEE now, HUH? Can you SEE this? Can you fucking bare to LOOK and SEE?" Everyone in the class continued to merely stare with looks of matching indolence, mouths a gape and glimmers of excitement, the contact-high of blatant rebellion sinking in. "And what the FUCK do you think trying to pull the fucking wool over my eyes is EVER going to even REMOTELY come close to beginning to do? What about all that bullshit you constantly shove up our asses about 'Knowledge is power' and bla bla bla bullshit. How the fuckin' Hell do you…. Do you know what, oooohh, say the big word with me, Kids, HYPOCRITE means? Evidentially not, moron. And why are we all so fucking HUNG UP on fucking censoring and censoring and censoring, anyway ? You Can't fucking CENSOR real life. And, guess what? We're not bland, shapeable, impressionable, stupid fucking nothing clay minds. Well, Marsh over there may be, but, Jesus" A slight snicker raced through the crowd at the joke, maybe for no other reason than because they caught a glimmer of Dylan's normal self, hating on Stan, and the tension of the evident, unruly, unknown change was relieved, even if only for a moment.

" Just because we read a goddamned book about drugs, another about running off, another about eating disorders, another about homosexuality, one with sex, doesn't mean we're going to become crack addicted, run away, gay whores with eating disorders. We're six and seven fucking teen and we have MINDS and intelligence, regardless of how limited, and we're not made of fucking moldable clay. I've read books about all that shit, and, regardless of the aforementioned fitting me right to a Purdy, dandy little-T" The students laughed once more at the joke, the heavy sarcasm they were accustomed to " it sure as Hell wouldn't have been those damn books. And you can't fucking look away forever,. You can try and try and try but you can't keep running and hiding and shutting your eyes and saying 'I can't see you, you're not there' because you just can't, because that's not how it works. So my question is, what will it take to get you all to STOP being intentionally deaf, blind morons, to fucking get all this shit through your conformist- ass heads? What can't you look away from ? What do you SEE, huh?" At this point, much to the utter bewilderment and shock of those around him, he began to fumble with the tight belt around his waist " What do you see, do you see this?" and at that point, he had, shamelessly and definitely, dropped his pants onto his desk. He had kicked them into the teacher's general direction, and began to pull at his shirt buttons " Huh, or can you not see THIS either? Too racy for you, so it doesn't exist? YOU don't dub it entirely acceptable, so it all just magically disappears? Huh, how about this?" And, yet, before he got the chance to rip his shirt over his head, Kenny McCormick, having been the only other exempt from the paralyzing stupor that had settled over all the surrounding pupils, because he was fucking KENNY, had stood and yanked at Dylan's arm, pulling him forcefully off the table. Laughing muffledly, evidentially exceedingly amused, through his hood, he had shaken his head and pulled Dylan out into the hallway, retrieving his pants off of the teacher's desk as he passed. When they were safely alone outside of the classroom, Kenny had to turned Dylan, shoulders still shaking as he chuckled and said, simply-

"Man, that has got to be the best fucking thing I've seen in my entire High School career" Coming from the pervert who'd seen Heaven and Hell too many times to count, it was kind of flattering. "But I have a feeling you stripping down nude might cause more problems than it would have been worth. You made your damn point. Now, take your pants and get the fuck outta here before they call in the fucking SWAT team to hall your ass to detention, or wherever the Hell they place crack addicted, eating disordered, homosexual man whores" He had laughed again, thrown the pants at Dylan and, still shaking his head, walked back into the room. Though Dylan stubbornly scowled at the pretentious son-of-a-bitch and clenched his hands at his sides, prepared to punch that condescending smile off of his face, he couldn't help but maybe feel something a little duller than rage or dissent for the arrogant bastard. He hated the asshole, he could honestly say, and was readily prepared to beat his scrawny, conforming ass any day, yet, still found himself managing to dig up some sense of appreciation for a fellow rebellious, and at least mildly intelligent, student, and had instead just sighed pointedly and turned away. Yanking his jeans back on, he made his way back into his car, waited a few minutes for what he, eerily, knew was to approach. Five minutes later, the tall, dark figure with it's usual smoke halo, lost amidst the tangle of 'hair' had cracked open the car door and plopped down besides him. A moment of silence followed, the strong sent of the lit cigarette dancing amongst that of the dead branches and the non-existent grass and the dead of winter across the worn pleather of the car. Evan had then hissed out an amused chuckle through his nostrils, and said, simply-

"You're such a crazy son-of-a-bitch." another drag " what the fuck was running through your physco ass head that prompted you to do that, anyway?" Dylan started the car, not bothering to check behind him, nor act as if he even remotely intended on ever putting both hands on the wheel- he needed a fucking smoke- before peeling out of the parking lot.

"Nothing"

And 'nothing', he supposed, was a mildly accurate term to describe the general velocity of himself and his mind. Though, it was an unsettling type of 'nothing', one that gave you positively no reason, which was more of a reason than any, to doubt it or believe otherwise. It didn't really matter, he had long since determined, nor did his monotonous, soul suckingly boring/suppressed life of a desolate, hick town High School student, and all he really had to do was get through this and next year in the Hell Hole before he could split, anyway. Restless was an understatement, yet, profundity was as well, and he was well aware that he had to and was perfectly capable of sticking around for the time expected of him. He wasn't stupid and he knew how the world worked. And so, despite the fact that he was often seriously ready to bash his face repetitively into a wall or stab one of Butter's goddamn Hello Kitty pencils through his retina, he typically just grabbed a smoke, downed another coffee, flipped off a conformist or two and got the fuck over it. He'd grown out of complaining, as had the rest of them. Yet, people still tended to look at all of them oddly, for obvious and predictable reasons- they looked weird, the guys wore eyeliner, they were dressed entirely in black, generally looked over the top bla bla bla. They walked around, casually and illegally smoking cigarettes at 16, and said the weirdest shit and were generally considered peculiar for all the expected reasons. And, for those who had grown up with them and were essentially accustomed to said peculiar-ness, there was still the element of unexpectedness and bewilderment with the way in which they reacted and held themselves. You'd witness Dylan stubbornly mute and refusing to speak or utter even the vaguest sound of acknowledgment, favoring instead dirty, dark looks at those around him, on Monday, and on Tuesday, there he was, standing on a desk, ranting about Catcher in the Rye and pulling his pants off in the middle of class. One moment Henrietta was bitching like a prostitute on menopause and the next she was speaking excitedly, or, as excitedly as a Goth could get, anyway, which wasn't very much at all, of the Skinny Puppy concert they were planning to attend. One morning Georgie refuses to even get out of bed, the next they cannot find him, because he's run off with the car again, blaring music at a volume to rival that of those ghetto-ass hydraulic cars with the bass pumped out.

And Evan, well, he was exceedingly peculiar, whatever that word could possibly mean in regards to people already generally considered as such. He happened to be just a plain old sense of the word 'weird', as opposed to Dylan, who was the kind of the weird that came with the job, Evan was just simply bemusing. He had an infuriatingly unwavering demeanor of calm coldness, smooth arrogance and a bit of condescendence that you couldn't quit place your finger on, yet that irked at you as he reeled at you with his eyes. He actually often got away with half-almost-smiling a lot, more so than the rest, and was more fluid than an awkwardly-tall -and-skinny- six-foot-sixteen-year-old-who-wore-makeup-and-dressed-entirely-in-black should be. He was a smoother-than-it-should-be mixture of more cold and detached yet more approachable and lenient and human-like than the rest. He was cool and unfazed and seemingly a bit pompous/narcissistic/pretentious yet radiated an awaked sort of tendency to lean away as others attempted to look at him, speak to him, and a quiet sort of self loathing that only Dylan really got to witness fragments of. He proved simple, blunt, aggressive, utterly lacking that thingy-ma-jig-a-ma-bob called 'tact', yet seemed indifferent and was undeniably reluctant to be in contact with the outside world. It was unbelievably confusing and impossible, to simply try and explain how confusing and impossible he was. Evan had an overpowering sense that you could never put your finger on, and sometimes even made Dylan's mind spin, despite that he was, undoubtedly, the single person who knew him most on the planet. Evan was all these things, yet always so blank and purely shut off at the same time. It was just odd.

Georgie was a generally monotonous and broodingly dark creature, appreciated more than anything for the rare occasions he did choose to speak and acknowledge his own existence .He conventionally only spoke when he felt absolutely inclined, and therefore typically SPOKE when he did, where as most people just talked and talked and never said a thing, He was loved, though such a putridly sweet word would never once be contemplated, for his own contradictions, his inner diversity and mysteriosity. And that was about all that could be said for him, as vague as it may appear. Dylan often felt as if he really should know more about his own brother, yet, there really wasn't much more to know. No distinctive traits or even emotions manifested themselves within the boy, no sarcasm or angry outburst or a tendency to do this or that. He was a bland shade of utterly un-intricate black, and not really much more. A brooding blob of a generally pessimistic, monotonous wall flower, and nothing else. And though Dylan often wondered HOW, possibly, his brother really was so purely one dimensional, he had long since come to accept and accustom himself to the boy's lack of inner being, and had learned to leave him as he was.

Henrietta had a tendency to be a bit quirky and was likely the most emotion expressing Goth kid out there. Prone to random outbursts of anger (and in general), a short temper, a tendency to strain exceedingly hard to be non-conforming, she maintained quit a numerous array of her feminine aspects, things Dylan really was not accustomed to. Tendencies to say this or do that, which provided a bit of an abnormally… understanding and soft confident, regardless of the fact that she was, by no means, to be described as 'soft' in any other context. 'Fiery' was a word that often came to mind, maybe with a side of overly-intense, rebellious, hard to handle, as free spirited as a Goth can manage, hap-hazardous thrown in. She demonstrated excess amounts of ragged passion, was a burning sort of fire cracker, always just barely contained, if at all. Quick to scream, quick to get pissed, quick to smack you across the face, hasty to decide, hasty to go forth, hasty to slap. She very well said what the fuck she wanted when she did, and did what she pleased when she felt like it, 'consequences' be damned. A bit of red streaked amongst the general, ranging shades of darkness that existed within their group. The idea to streak his own hair red, in fact, had been more so her doing than his own. He had mentioned wanting to streak his already chemically drenched, pseudo black hair with a sharp color, such as blue or green or purple, and she had taken it upon herself to drag him over after school with a box of freshly purchased dye. Shoved him to settle down on her toilette seat and promptly searing his scalp with the shit, before shoving his head under the faucet. All while blabbering away a mile a moment. When she had finished and he, to his own utter shock, was still alive and had- not yet- been drowned in the process, he looked in the mirror to discover streak of fresh, bright red adorning his hair. "It was just the perfect color for you" her explanation came after a few moments of decisive silence " it's a badass color" casually lit a smoke, "besides, it looks, like, totally hot on your scrawny ass". Which was actually, though not indicated by the previous comment, where many of their most profound conversations usually took place. They tended to buy the cheapest dye in the store, knowing that they may or may not be able to afford better, but not willing to risk the change, which generally faded enough to require de-dying every one and a half to two weeks. Which always, regardless of when and how, found the two back in her cramped, second story bathroom. The old, pastel flowered wall paper, once a shade of white, and those stupid fucking duck ornaments her mother insisted on keeping smiling up at them, they locked the off-white door, crooked on it's hinges, ad were alone. And here, they felt safe and inclined to talk. Because, this was their own moment in time, their own solstice of locked, uneven doorframes and dingy, cold tile. The small room held a therapeutic kind of secretive feel, suspending it's knowledge above the air in a more pleasant, anticipatory sense, as opposed to the dwelling, looming way in which secrets are often wont to linger. And here, they spoke over the roar of water traveling in spidery streams across Dylan's scalp, his boney fingers pushed firmly against the cold porcelain. They conversed fluidly as she saturated his hair with the red shit, never failing to put too much around his roots. His scalp always burned the same way and he always whined until she bent him over the sink, his back twitching painfully, midriff exposed at the odd angle. They ALWAYS fucking conversed, which was probably what was so intrudingly unique about the scene, Two people who typically talked but didn't speak, talking and not stopping until the job was done. And maybe it was a little 'gay' of him to be discussing life in depth, locked away in a flowery bathroom with is head dunked under a sink as a girl stuffed into a thin black dress streaked his hair a pleasant shade of red. Maybe it was a little 'hetero' being locked alone in a bathroom with a girl for an extended period of time on a regular basis, which just really only ever made him realize how little his peers had actually grown up since Elementary School. He, honestly, liked the conversations, the short time they shared. They spoke of actual significance, and these conversations were how he often came to know things, such as how HE, himself, was perceived by the world around him.

Apparently, he was categorically something implacable. Where as, she would say, running her fingers smoothly through the crest of Dylan's hair, Evan was a kind of cold shade of intricate grayish-blueish-tealish-white, George a thick sludge of plain, ink black, herself, admittedly, a bright shade of explosive red…. He was just an indecipherable medley of exploded colors, though, she said, that was a bit too neon-y, cheerfully bright and colorful sound and, fuck, she was running out of words. Jagged, she said, sporadic came to mind. He was the color dawn, 6:55 in the morning amidst the dead of February, and when he told her that that wasn't a color, she had dunked his head further under the water and told him to shut up. Dawn in the winter, she said, as the sun is just barely up. Eerie in the way that no one is yet up, nothing is yet alive nor stirring, already asleep against the back drop of utter lifelessness that the 'dead' of winter is wont to be. Dead atop of dead, she said, silence atop of silence. And, yet, there is light and knowledge and anticipation for the future, the next month, week, day, moment, second, and it all wasn't really dead, but holding it's breath in an attempt to try and hear itself breath/ He said that that didn't make any fucking sense, but she just smacked him upside the head and blew rings of casual smoke from her mouth. Emptiness that appeared empty just for the sake of the fact that it's not and the illusion that it has a choice to be as such. And everyone knows that everything will start to breath and the sun will move and fall and rise, but they never know quite WHAT will happen in that span and it makes them question if it'll happen at all. The moment of 'half-light', as she called it, was the one moment in life that exposed exactly _what is _and nothing else. Though it was full and seemingly empty and busting at the seams with it's own contradictions, it was one snapshot moment of solely _what was _and nothing else. And then she had stopped abruptly and pulled his head from the faucet and he hadn't asked because he knew he wouldn't get an answer. And he never got it, though he kind of did, just a little bit. Another time, she had said something about explosives, broken glass, spontaneous combustions. Either way he had gotten tired of being compared to intangible things and had since stopped asking and listening, because he really didn't want to know anyway. And, so, that was them, as well as they could be described and so on and so forth. Though they generally did tend to act like this, or do that, or say this, or go here, there still was a sense of threatening, almost ominous spontaneality always hanging half-said in the air above them that tended to make other kids uneasy.

So, as was probably expected from a group of abnormal people, they just so happened to have abnormal relationships with the world and people and each other and in general. An accurate depiction merely through words probably would never exist, and likely only observation from an internal point would give an even mildly correct notation as to their ways of interacting. Dylan had never entirely been into actually interacting with people, and his numerous years of utter isolation at a young age had likely left his ability to do so hindered. Regardless, he still managed means of interacting with his 'friends' that sufficed, even if these interactions consisted solely of seemingly non-committal grunts and every profanity their public education had provided. There existed a general order as to the way those within the group interacted, and when stated simply the relationships seemed callow, uninteresting and plain, though that was really farthest from the truth as anything could be. Generally, Dylan and Evan proved to be a "special" pair (Wow, look who's been brain washed by Sarah Palin speak), BIFFFFLZZZ, or whatever the fuck anyone wanted to call it. It was widely acknowledged by those who associated with either that Dylan and Evan were kind of their own existence, just as real and solid as Dylan's existence alone or Evan's existence alone. Georgie generally got along with any and everyone because he never spoke and didn't really have an opinion or a voice to conflict with, and yet still provided enough substance to be well-liked. Henrietta and Evan tended to clash a bit, the contradicting yet somewhat similar aspects within their personalities proving explosive- being cliché and utilizing cheesy metaphors, one could say that hot and cold air does, after all, make a tornado- but could get along well when they pleased. They could be a bit all or nothing, but did tended to appreciate one another's humor and did, more often than not, manage to peacefully co-exist with minimal effort. Dylan had a bit of closer (or _whatever_) relationship with Henrietta, having known her for so long and generally just meshing well with one another had built up a bit of a 'bonnnddddddd' (Hi, I'm Betty Crocker. Jesus) between the two. They had always gotten along well, and that fact always managed to stay true, in spite of any time that may have passed and any dilemmas that may have occurred. Dylan generally felt contended with his relations to his 'friends', and often felt a sense of comfort in the fact that they all did manage along so well together, all had managed to find relatable figures in the Hell Hole known as their home town. Being 'Goth' often made maintaining relationships much simpler, because no one really expected you to act like you gave a shit, and you didn't really have to worry about any cryptic 'who said what and who meant what' bullshit. Existing within the confines of a stereotype did, at times, have it's own perks, and being Goth really did allow for a wider range of emotional existence, in spite of the core definition of Goth of being often conceived as being built upon a _lack_ of emotional diversity. But really, no one expected anything of you. No one expected a fake this or a fake that or for you to have holes in your words or things lying beyond the surface.

Which was probably more than a small part of the 'reason' he became Goth in the first place and why he, dare such a forbidden, conforming word be uttered, enjoyed the 'Goth' way of being. Because he didn't _have_ to smile. No one _expected _him to. He may have claimed to loathe the stereotype and stereotypes in general, but that much, he could be thankful for. The thought of feigning any sort of lack of darkness, a smile, a glimmer of normal being expected .. To look like a happy-go-lucky fucking mildly content conformist, someone actually asking if he was alright, was inconceivable to him. No one expected him to smile, and for that, he was thankful. That, however, was not to say that he was completely devoid of any expectancies and that there wasn't a sense of at least semi-normalcy to be deviated from. His group was capable of sensing a sort of wrongness, under the circumstance that he was being plain, blatantly, literally and undeniably obvious about it, even in which case they still sometimes didn't take notice. But Evan, somewhat to Dylan's dismay, was capable of sensing things that Dylan didn't even know about himself. Breath out of place, and Evan knew it, and it proved slightly infuriating at times. Not that Dylan necessarily _disliked _the fact that the other, dare he venture to say, cared about him ( though he would never use those exact words), nor was it really the actual fact that he noticed ( 'Dylan, you've coughed some more today than usual. Not to be a pussy fag, but maybe you should lay low on the smoking for a while') or that he was uncannily alert and accurate ( 'Dude, why do you wince when you get up or move a certain way? You get hurt in another fight or some shit?'), but more so the fact that Dylan didn't know how he did it and what he could possibly be giving Evan that allowed him this knowledge. Dylan was so accustomed to being left well enough alone, unquestioned, so used to being a flawless, alarmingly excellent liar. Knew only of the smug, maybe sometimes slightly bitter, silence and a façade so real that HE sometimes believed it. So HOW, in the Hell, Evan possibly picked up on these things was beyond him. He didn't know WHAT he was giving off, what information he was indirectly providing Evan with. And that bothered him. As if a tiny pin hole had punctured his inflated raft, and he could feel it's density softening, hear the hissing of the air escaping, but couldn't figure out WHERE it was coming from. He had no idea what he was giving away, where, how and, in turn, not how or what he should be hiding. It was as if someone had access to his own mind, his own self and inner thoughts, while he was left locked out. And this was not okay, this terrified him, though he would never use such a word, because he was afraid of what, unbeknownst to him, he may just let slip. Evan being the only one watching could prove a relief or a curse, but either way Dylan had long since learned to deal with it, and was grateful for the fact that he didn't have to give anyone else the time of fucking day. They did live in South Park, after all, and if anyone were ever to seek a group of some of the most insufferable people on the planet, South Park would doubtlessly be the place to look.

South Park was a blatantly and wildly peculiar place that often found itself the sole subject of exceedingly odd occurrences. In a specific location where the inhabitants had experienced so many outrageous encounters at the hands of so many diverse people, it would commonly have been assumed that the said citizens would have long since become open minded to the world around them. However, in spite of it's excess exposure to the outside world, South Park still, somehow, managed to retain it's isolationist mountain town ways and remain an indisputable hick town, a feat inconceivable by many. Woop-dee-fucking-doo was all Dylan really ever thought of it, maybe a bit secretly pleased, but unwilling to admit so, that this allowed for a big-fish-in-a-small-pond scenario. Yet, the 'Goths', as they were often referred to, all were still genuinely displeased with the mentality of the town, feeling themselves destined for places such as large cities in the future, and remained totally alienated beings from the 'norm' citizens of the area. Acceptance had long since become a part of each of their persons, empathy taking it's usual control of their dispositions. Dylan, living the soul-suckingingly monotonous life of a rebellious teenager in a mountainous hick town, often found himself searching for new means of entertainment, stimulation in a place where nothing but dead grass and uninterested peers resided, and conventionally only came up with the same things. Thinking and analyzing and studying those around him, chain smoking until everything tasted like dust and fiddling around with an old guitar. Dylan had a certain fascination with humans and society and the world around him (as much interest as a rebellious, isolationistic, non-conforming Gothic freaky kid could muster, anyway) and he _noticed_ things. He noticed and though about shit that maybe no one else did, it seemed, or at least portrayed as much. He noticed a lot of things and concepts tended to flutter in and out and about his mind in an incoherently, chaotic manner. Occasionally, a concept would manage to catch, a pebble amidst a strong current that happened to find a place to settle. And within the ungraspable and ceaselessly flowing dribble that tended to fabricated his thought process, there were a few ideas, a few things that just kind of, ultimately, stuck. He tended to acknowledge these said concepts often and always noticed and saw and knew and thought of them. Though he wouldn't be able to name all of, if any, of these " themes" where someone to put him on the spot, even with how often he thought of them, several main "themes" of his thought process appeared frequently and coherently enough to become clear and decipherable to him. And these he always managed to pick out in every day, always managed to stay awake thinking about for hours on end. He fucking hated his mind a majority of the time, because it never seemed to want to stop and it never allowed him to stop or think or breath or fucking _sleep. _He thought and thought and thought and it all proved generally insignificant, but damn if that could stop his buzzed out mind, his fluttering stomach and the churning, churning. Generally, he felt like a just statistic and an individual at the same time, he was basically a peculiar kid living in a small town, and he liked to think he had a story, had a spot, had _something_, even if he really was just another teenaged cliché.


	2. Chapter 2

**Keep Your Hopes up High and Your Head Down Low**

**A/n:** THE DAMN LINES TO SEPERATE THE MOTHERFUCKING SECTIONS WON'T SHOW UP. Do your best to decipher were the lines were intended to be. This site is reality pissing me off tonight. I think the occurences depicted in the bulk of this chapter are a good enough indication as to why it took me so damn long to update. These scenes will have a point eventually, by the way, you're just going to have to trust me on that one for now. Title is from the song All I Want by A Day to Remember.

Facades

The basis of society as we know it. Living in a painfully small hick town with the same people and the same situations and the same goddamned everything your entire life allowed for a considerable amount of closeness to those Dylan typically observed. Allowed for more thorough observations, a variety of independent variables or ,hedidn'tpayattention. Though the adults in South Park tended to be a bit less apt at co-existing peacefully with one another and efficiently with the world, they still thrived upon the typical facades any stereotypical adult did. Any average person did. As much as we may or may not like to admit it, and as much as we fight the fact and encourage "honesty" and pride ourselves upon our apparent "bluntness" and feverishly reassure out selves the best we can with useless words, _everyone_ lives and breaths their façade everyday. This was a simple, plain fact to him, and he was fairly sure that it was a fact known but left pointedly unacknowledged by a majority of people. And though it may have been a purely morbid idea- the basis of an entire society being constructed upon falseness, facades, a lack of ability to function even mildly driven by truth and factualness- pure morbidity and blatant reality often proved to be separated by a fine, fine line, and he enjoyed walking that line. Though he often somewhat questioned how applicable his observations may have been to the outside world- he was, after all, isolated within the bubble dubbed South Park- human nature was, in fact, human nature, environment influencing merely the manner in which it manifested itself and not it's actual consistency. And so, he was fairly certain as to the accuracy of his observations, and full heartedly acknowledged the existence of falseness in people and life. The individuality within each person's own false front always had fascinated him, and he couldn't help but utilize his eerie ability to accurately read people as a means of observing the contrast in each individuals own self, and false self.

"Hey, man, did-...you look like shit"

"I always do dearly appreciate your input, Evan."

"Just stating the obvious, dude. Get your big kid panties outta their bunches. What's up anyway, you're never a morning person or whatever, but damn. Did you not get your coffee this morning or something?"

Dylan rubbed at his eyes and smashed his fist against his locker as it, yet again, refused to open. Damn fucking thing always stuck like a son-of-a-bitch.

"motherfucking dickweed, cock sucking piece of shit fucking hunk of fucking metal never fucking works right because our fucking school can't even afford fucking lockers that fucking…"

" Wow, look, okay, seriously. I do not want to listen to your whining, you sound like my mother on her period. I get enough of that shit at home. Just let me do it, get a smoke or something and calm the fuck down" Evan nudged Dylan, who had begrudgingly thrown his piece-'o-shit tattered excuse of a 'backpack' against the wall and begun searching for a cigarette, out of the way and began to work on the shifty dial. The routine was mundane enough- Dylan finding himself unable, for the 678975678 time to open his locker, spewing every swear word his public education had provided him while banging around, and eventually moving aside to allow Evan to do it for him. Evan had long since committed Dylan's combination to memory, and was entirely aware as how exactly to maneuver the result of a long past budget-cut, as it had its own personal tendencies to stick and jam, and was notorious for its difficulty. The only thing Evan had thought upon attaining the knowledge of Dylan's locker number back in ninth grade was that only Dylan would get stuck with that shit, and he, after all these years, had yet to figure out how to work it.

"My bitch of a mother drank the last of the fucking coffee. Not only that, but she trashed her own fucking car or whatever, and had to take mine. And I'm broke as shit. Therefore, I had no money or means of getting any new coffee and had to walk my ass all the way to fucking school in the freezing cold. I'm still wondering why the Hell I even bothered to come. Does the bitch realize that I'm a fucking insomniac or whatever the fuck you call it, and a fucking caffeine addict? Stupid fucking bitch."

Evan pushed up the faded silver handle of the locker, lowering it partially and thrusting it back up, holding it fast as he pried at the bottom of the door with his foot and applied pressure at a center spot with his shoulder.

"Wow, seriously, what a bitch" he grunted and shifted the door on its frame over to the left side a slight amount " The cafeteria has some shitty 'coffee' that tastes like an oil spill, don't ask me how I know that, and though I doubt it's suitable for human beings to consume, I acknowledge the fact that you will drink caffeine in any form at this point." He grunted a little and secured the lower section of the locker with his knee, yanking free the top of it. " We can skip first period and get some shit, I could go for caffeine myself". Still holding the handle securely up, he applied pressure to the knee propped against the metal, causing the lower section to jar and allowing his foot to sneak in and pop it out. He then settled both feet back onto the ground and gave one last pull, the locker swinging open, the door shuddering in response to the sudden motion. "Fuck. That piece of shit has go to fucking go one of these days, really."

" Mmm" Dylan provided his input of a non-committal grunt, having finally emerged from his Hellish wasteland of a book bag with a half-crushed package of cigarettes grasped in his hand. He had yet to actually join the world of the living, considering the time of morning and utter lack of the always-necessary caffeine and had paid little attention to the entire ordeal, but had at least managed to gather the fact that there was coffee on the premises and dropped his items off into his locker.

"C'mon, let's go before I pass the fuck out or something". Evan retrieved his own shaggy, black sack of fabricate off the ground and bummed a smoke out of Dylan's pack, who was far too unresponsive and unaware of the world around him to care.

" Man, what do you even do at night? Like, I know you have insomnia or whatever, but, seriously, what the fuck do you find to do all night, every night?" Dylan shrugged, taking a few brisk steps ahead of Evan down the hallway.

"Nothing, really."

**MY DAMN LINE WILL NOT SHOW UP SO THIS IS A LINE. **

"Hello?"

"Hey, dude. You wanna, like, go grab coffee or something?, I'm still out and I can't even take it anymore. And I don't have a car still. My mom left on some shitty thing, I don't know, I don't know what old bitches do on the weekend, and I need a ride. We can, like, play CoD after or whatever at my place."

"I can't." Evan's response was curt and bland and tense and just _weird_, and Dylan felt a little red flag pop up inside of him. This, again. Typically Dylan and Evan did what they felt like on the weekends, hanging with the group or just themselves or _whatever_, but still together. It was uncommon for them not to see each other out of school at some point during the week, even if not on the weekend, without a viable excuse. Yet, as of late, Dylan hadn't managed to convene with Evan outside of South Pak High at all, two weeks having passed with sporadic school encounters, and Evan moodily and hastily rejecting every other attempt to make plans. Dylan was starting to feel like some sort of little girl, repetitively questioning his friend, and had to admit to slight embarrassment, if not suspicion. Evan had been acting more reclusive, moody, tense on each occasion that they spoke, which he appeared reluctant to do. He seemed exhausted, he seemed drained, he seemed troubled. He was off, and it was blatant as Rosey O'Donald's sexuality, and Dylan wasn't goddamn stupid. Evan had been, seemingly, grounded, or at least un-allowed to go anywhere outside of school for a while, confined to his father and step mother's house, and any conversation held beyond said school hours proved curt, rushed and lacking in any other air but 'wrong'. Dylan had figured that the other would at least be allowed out on their current week-long vacation, but that didn't seem to be happening, and it was just getting unsettling. Dylan had a bit of a sinking feeling in his stomach that he wouldn't admit to, because that was for pussies or _whatever_, and he _wasn't _a fuckin' pussy, that he kind of didn't want to think too much about because it couldn't be true, anyway, he was sure. He'd know if it was.

"Oh..are you in trouble or some shit?" Dylan coughed into his hand a little, and thought he heard a noise in background, but was briskly cut off by Evan's distracted and rushed response.  
>"I just can't. I can't go anywhere." He sounded maybe something resembling frayed-something that was less than nonchalant, anyway.<p>

"Dude, is everything, like, okay or whatev-"

"I have to go."

Click.

Well, shit then.

He sat for a second and stared at the phone after the line went dead and, well, _shit_, because now he'd be a fuckin' idiotic asshole to ignore the red flags. He clicked down to Evan's name in his phone and promptly typed in a haste message.

"_Hey, man. What's going on?"_

Send.

He waited a few moments, feeling like some school girl waiting for her boyyyfrrraannnnddd to text back and like he should go put a tampon in or something, because he was such a fuckin' girl-

One new message.

_"Nothing. why?"_

Fuckin' douche.

_"Dude, I'm not stupid. Something's been up lately."_

Send.

He fidgeted a little, fixing at his pants.

One new message.

"_I'm fine. Nothing's up."_

Fuck.

"_How long have I known you for? You seriously expect me to believe that bullshit?"  
><em>

Send.

Exhale, fidget, scratch head.

One new message.

_"Whatever, it's fine. There's nothing going on."_

Suddenly it occurred to Dylan that Evan's physco-ass parent did, in fact, read his text messages online, and that he was an idiot for not realizing it before.

_"Whatever. Get on Facebook chat."_

He didn't wait for a response, and instead headed to sign on to his computer. He felt unnerved. The whole situation was coming together a little too well, and it was kind of fucked up, how unavoidable it was. Dylan was sure of his suspicions now, and it was too fucking obvious.

Evan's dad was beating the shit out of him lately.

As per fuckin' usual.

Duh.

It made too much sense, was too blatant. The being 'grounded', unable to leave the house, the moods and bullshit.

As he signed on and saw Evan on his 'Online Buddies list', he clicked the other's name and quickly started typing.

_"Seriously, what's up?"_

_"Nothing is up. Everything is fine."_

"_Dude, c'mon, please, I don't wanna play this fucking game."_

Dylan didn't care if he sounded like a desperate little girl, he wanted to know. Evan took few moments to respond.

_"They disowned me."_

…Well, fuck.

"_What?"_

"My family. They disowned me."

Dylan stared at the screen for a few seconds…_what? _That made utterly no sense. The last thing Evan was was someone who ever behaved in a manner around his family that would justly prompt any sort of punishment nor valid reason to disown him. He was kind of an ass, and he was a 'rebellious' lil' motherfucker teenager and whatever, but that was kind of beside the point. Dylan chewed on his lip. Was he gay? That's typically what came to mind when he heard of a families disowning of their young son.

"_…what? Why?"_

_"I don't know."_

Annnddd this bullshit again.

_"Well, what'd they say?"_

He hated it when Evan was a stubborn little btich like this. He had to know why his family has fucking disowned him. And if Evan knew, Dylan needed to fucking know. He chewed at his middle finger nails, the surreal and exceedingly dramatic nature of the entire ordeal throwing him for a bit of a loop. Things rarely got stirred up in shitty, monoton High School moutain life, but when they did, then you bet your shit that they did, and big time.

_"Idk."_

Ohhh, well know the stubborn bitch was using texting acronyms. Great. _  
><em>

_"Well, they had to say something to you."_

"_I dunno. They told me just not to talk to them anymore and shit. That I'm not a part of them or whatever."  
><em>

_"Why?"_

It took a few extra moments for him to answer this time, and the icon that indicated that he was typing flashed on and off a few times. He was obviously doubting what to say.

_"He found my bowl. For pot."_

…Shit.

_"…..shit."_

_"Yeah."_

….

_Fuck. _

"_How? What'd he say? What went down?"_

Well, fuck. As much of a pussy as it made him, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest, his stomach churning a little. Shit, he was turning into Betty Crocker.

" _I don't know. And I'm waiting for him to get home._

_He's going to beat the shit outta me."_

And it was true. Evan's dad was about three hundred pounds of solid mass and broad shoulders- he reminded Dylan of that Wario character in the Mario games- and was violent as a motherfucker. Being beat for the most trivial things was something Evan, being tall, yet quite thin and built more with lean, subtle muscle and a fraction his father's size, was somewhat accustomed to. But Dylan was starting tweek a bit at this, because fuck. This was huge. His father had found his bowl, meaning he knew that Evan did drugs, meaning God knows what. The asshole beat the shit out of him, to the extent that he had to learn to smear makeup around his own eye, for spilling a goddamned drink. The asshole went to the effort to literally park their car, pull him behind a bank, and beat the shit out of him because he refused to cut his hair that made him "look like a faggot." And now he had found out of his drug usage.

Fuck.

"_Shit, man. Can you get outta there? I'll come get you.."_

"No, that'll just piss him off more. Whatever, it's fine."

"Yeah, it's 'fine', until you get your face bashed in. I'm serious. Leave."

Was that too crass? He didn't really know.

_"I can't leave. I seriously can't. Don't worry about it. It'll be fine."_

The conversation went on like this for a little longer, each talking circles around the other, a futile effort to try and make themselves feel like they could _do_ something.

_"He just called me. _  
><em>Lmfao.<em>  
><em>He said he's going to 'break my legs'<em>  
><em>Lmfao."<em>

In spite of himself and his- somewhat self proclaimed- notorious tendency to "stay" (appear, stay, same difference) calm in any given situation, Dylan felt his stomach drop along with the cell phone he'd been throwing around in his hands. _  
><em>

_"When is he getting home? When did he say that? Dude, get the fuck out."_

_"lmfao. I don't know, like, soon. And earlier. He called me from work._

_Lmfao"_

Dylan swallowed, placing his fingers on the keys. He knew what Evan was trying to do. His 'Laughing my ass off, hahaha' bullshit, trying to blow it off like it wasn't a big deal. Like he thought the idea humorous. Like it was nothing. Like Dylan had no reason to worry and like his dad wasn't really going to do anything and the idea that he had just threatened him was totally preposterous and that it really was nothing and they should just let it go and not think of it anymore because really, it wasn't a big deal at all, really. Like he wasn't scared. _  
><em>

_"Shut up. It's not funny. You need to leave."_

_"Dud we wet over thia. i cant lv"_

And suddenly his typing skill was totally deteriorating and that either meant that he was shaking too hard, was too freaked to think, or something was blurring his vision.

_" I'm coming to get you. You can stay here and give him time to cool off or whatever. You're leaving. I'm going to get you."_

_"No. i cant. I srsly cant man. itll be fine."_

_"Who's home right now?"_

_"Jus mu stepmom. he gets back arond this time uslly."_

He felt a little sick, yet oddly unfazed, at the same time.

_"Look, Evan. You're going to be alright, man. It'll be okay."_

The words sounded fake even to him.

_"itll be fine. W.e"_

_"how'd he even find it?"_

_"idk."_

_"Man, really, just let me come get you."_

_"Cant man cant."_

_"Jesus.."_

_"Dont worry. im kinda used to it anyway . its fine."_

Before Dylan could even attempt to formulate a response, which he was sure would have miserably failed anyway, another message flashed onto the screen.

_"I gotta go, dude. Don't worry about it, I'll talk to you later."_

And he was offline.

Great.

Wonderful.

Dylan took a sharp inhale and clicked the computer screen off, now entirely conflicted and jittery and ready to shit himself. Should he call someone? Go over there? He knew that Evan's dad didn't bullshit with this kind of shit. This wasn't some sort of hollow threat or dramatization that the heat of the moment and the almost delicious, sickening rush of it all had spawned. It was a real, Life-Time-Movie, Shitty-1990's-Video-From-Home Ec.-Class circumstance, and he really had not a clue what, exactly, to do. Scenarios as to failed investigations, beatings, false reports and close calls and shitty results and bruises flashed through his mind, and he finally just decided to leave it, because he was too afraid. Maybe it was against his better judgment, maybe he was a pussy, maybe he was a disgustingly selfish bastard, but he didn't _know_ what was going on, and what if it wasn't anything new? What if it was just another beating? That didn't make it okay, but that also didn't make it grounds to go ape-shit on. He sighed.

When situations such as this appeared in a book or a movie or some seemingly drug-induced after-school-special, it always seemed so simple. The protagonist always seemed to decide to keep their mouth shut and shut and shut, and everyone watching always yelled at the screen and asked what the fuck was wrong with them because, duh, 'if it were me, I would doubtlessly report it right away. I'm not an idiot. They're such a pussy' But it's different when you're actually there, he'd come to realize. Because what if, what if, what if. Because what if they couldn't prove the case? Because what if they didn't listen or care, or what if his father found out and just about killed him, and what if this happened and what if that happened and he deals with it, doesn't he? You hate it to death and wish with everything you have that you could change it, and pretend that you don't already hold the power in your hands _to_ change it because pshh, that's not _true_. That's too scary to be true. You don't want that to be true. It's a crushing feeling. And you would take his place, you really would, if you could, but he _wants_ it stay between you and him, for whatever reason. For the fear or shame or masochism or the rut he's stuck in or sheer desire to avoid the mess, he wants it between you. He can 'deal'. And you know he can't, but you nod your head anyway and tell yourself over and over that "it's okay, he's okay, he can handle it" because you don't _want_ it to be otherwise, and because you just _do_ and you don't quit know why. It's not as simple as "you're being an idiot, fuckin' tell someone", and not easy as "well, the dude's gunna die/end up in the hospital in the end because that dumb bitch isn't gunna tell anyone. The end. Can we have a study hall now?" because as sickeningly cliché as it all is, at the same time it isn't and you lose sleep night after night but you tell yourself to suck it up and get the fuck over it, because what are you complaining about? _He's _the one getting the shit beaten out of him, and here you are being the poetic little portrait of sleepless nights and with the weight of _knowing_ under your eyes. What is wrong with you?

He was now left with an entirely undetermined void of time spanning in front of him, in which he knew he had to do something or other, lest he aimlessly stare at the seconds tick by as he continuously shit and pissed him self and chewed his nails down to the nub. He decided, finally, upon taking the simple fifteen minute walk down to the small corner store that sold considerably good coffee, and blare music into his ears until he was sure that'd he'd caused enough hearing loss to drown out his mother's grating voice that would surely nag the shit out of him when she got home. Snagging his old Ipod with the spider-like shatters branching up the screen and his phone, not bothering to leave any of note, he trotted off, convinced that the outing would, at least, suffice in distracting him to an extent that he _wouldn't_ have to change his boxers every half hour until Evan came back. However, this distraction only proved so adequate, and after four coffees, three trips to the nearby Price Chopper's bathroom, endless laps around the few surrounding blocks and an hour's time, he found himself unable to stop fidgeting and tweaking and pacing. He had since decided to begin his typical practice of intentionally getting lost amongst the, albeit few, back streets of town until he finally made a full circle and eventually wound up home with a dead Ipod battery and no recollection of how, exactly, he'd found his way. Yet, walking about and skipping through shuffled songs only proved so distracting, and the thought dawned on him that maybe taking a solitary walk accompanied only by music and promises of an almost unlimited time allowance wasn't exactly the best way to avoid his own thoughts. When the hour and a half mark had passed, he found himself wondering around back at their old elementary school, eventually coming to rest on a warn and familiar swing set. Here he sat and chewed on his lip, swishing around the sticky remnants of his black coffee and wondering _what_, exactly, he should be thinking. A sense of dread was resting in the pit of his stomach, and yet his mind had yet to fully wrap itself around what was happening. The entire thing was so indirect, a mere Face book chat conversation, so alienated and surreal that he couldn't really feel the entirely full effect of what he knew was going to go on. He was sure he'd lose sleep over it, and was sure that his mind would eventually come to comprehend the terror resting in chest, but at the moment couldn't quite grasp it all. He pushed himself slightly on the swing and almost felt a bit of nostalgia twing at him for the more ignorant time, an entirely cliché concept, when he was younger. Though he usually thought desires to return to the nativity of childhood to be foolish- wanting to revert back to a totally ignorant and painfully simplistic time- he couldn't help but maybe wish for the nativity he never really got to have too long as a child. He soon tired of feeling like another over-used phrase thrown about on the Oprah Winfrey Show, however, and picked himself up, deciding to wonder his way back home. A mere fifteen minutes after leaving his resting place, he glanced at his phone and realized that it had, in fact, been two hours since Evan had left. He clicked onto the internet on his phone and signed on to Facebook, feeling his heart pick up as he saw the Evan was online. He quickly typed in a message, cursing as his stupid fucking phone screen started to act all goddamned glitchy.

_"Hey"_

_"Hiii. Just got done. Took a long shower."_

The fuck?

_"A shower…for two hours?"_

_"yupp."_

He always pulled shit like this. He refused to admit to anything that had happened half of the time- whether it was embarrassment, an attempt at avoiding pity or keeping himself from worrying others or just not wanting to talk about it, he always did. No one else really knew but Dylan, though they kind of had a feeling that Henrietta may at least have a vague idea, because she wasn't _stupid_ and she had that weird other sense thing going on. Regardless, Dylan knew he was lying. He also knew that he really shouldn't push it, at least not without some subtlety. Who knows? Maybe he'd intentionally gotten in the shower right as his father had come home and stayed in there.

"oh…your dad home?"

"Yeah."

He sighed, almost running into a lamp post as he stared pointedly at the screen…Fuck tact.

"Anything happen?"

"Nopeeee"

…really?

_"Really nothing? Did he, like, say anything to you?"_

"nooooo."

"have you guys spoken or interacted at all?"

"no"

Dylan's stomach churned again. Was he playing the aversion game? Was the beating yet to come? Were they sitting there, literally waiting for the moment that Evan's father would call for him and proceed to beat the ever-loving shit out of him?

"_Really, absolutely nothing?"_

"Yeah. He's in the kitchen. He got home a while ago. We haven't acknowledged each other."

"Really? He hasn't yelled or anything? Nothing."

"Nope."

He wasn't sure if he should believe it or not.

"Wow….do you think he'll do anything?"

_"I don't know."_

_"What are you doing right now?"_

_"Dyl, I gotta go. I have a massive headache…"_

oh.

"_Oh…any idea what from?"_

"Nope. But it kills, so I'll talk to later, man."

Shit.

"Later" came in the form of another three hours and fifteen minutes, in which Dylan returned home, paced around, went outside, went inside, turned the teevee on and off, made food, couldn't eat it, threw it out made some more, got rid of that, turned is Ipod on, turned it off, went online, threw it down, open and closed several windows, swung the refrigerator door around, picked up his guitar, started to learn a new song, put it back down, scribbled a picture, went to the bathroom a couple thousand times, and was generally pretty damn pathetic.

_"Heyy"_

Dylan promptly flew off of his upside-down position on the couch when his IM sound beeped on the computer screen, and rolled across the floor to reach his computer chair hastily.

Finally.

_"Hi. You okay?"_

_"mhmmm."_

_"Anything new happen?"_

_"No."_

_"Come here. Or let me come get you. You need to get out there."_

_"I can't, dude."_

Dylan didn't quite know why he kept talking circles around himself and repeating the same thing when he knew the answer. But he couldn't stand the thought of Evan staying there, and racked his brain for any possibilities.

"Can you at least go to your cousin's or something?"

_"Man, I can't go anywhere…_

_I'm in too much pain…"_

And there it was. It always was there, sometime. The crack. The chip in his resolve, the crack in the glass, the break in the wall. The fault in the pavement.

"Why"

He didn't even bother with a question mark.

"_He beat the shit out me._

_That headache from earlier was from getting beat"_

Crack.

_"I know. I was just waiting till you told me._

_How bad was it?"_

_"Idk, pretty shitty, I guess.."_

"_How many punches? How bad? How many bruises and shit? What went down?"_

He felt his stomach churn and repetitively drop as he watched the pencil shaped icon, indicating that Evan was typing, flick on and off the screen sporadically. Evan wasn't typically much of a writer, and the wait and the fact that he was writing so much was making Dylan feel a little sick. He ripped his nails to the stubs until a few began to bleed.

Ding.

Upon seeing how long the message was, he took a breath and prepared himself for what he probably didn't want to know.

_"I don't know how many punches. It lasted a long time, I kinda blacked out, I don't remember most of it. I do remember the beginning-ish. I remember that he punched me across the face a few times, in the stomach, then he picked me up and threw me against the wall, then he threw me down onto the ground, kicked me a few times, hit my head off the ground, pulled me up by my hair, threw me against the door, slapped me across the face a couple times and punched some more._

_I think there was a lot more , but I don't remember the rest."_

…..

Dylan felt his stomach lurch, maybe a little bit of bile creep up his throat. He breathed. No time to act like a child who scraped their knee on the Barney show, Dylan, get it the fuck together.

But he still found himself unable to think clearly enough to write a response, and shook his head a few times, as if to clear it. He should be calloused to this by now, he thinks. He was calloused and hard and unfazed by about everything else, why did this still get him? He shook his head again. Focus. He looked back at the screen. He couldn't. He got up, walked to the bathroom, swallowed some water, coughed a little into the sink, his fingers gripping the ledge tightly. He inhaled, pulled himself together. What a damn pussy he was. He sat back at the computer, stared at the screen for a few seconds.

_"….fuck, man. What the fuck. What's the damage?"_

_"Some bruises and shit. My head kills, I haven't checked a mirror yet, so I'm not sure how my face looks. A lot of scratches, some bleeding, and bruises, whatever. I think I'm limping some, haha. Not really a huge deal."_

Suddenly, he felt more angry than sick. Bastard. He kicked at his computer desk, clenching and unclenching his fists, and feeling kind of stupid as he did so.

_"Just what the fuck, seriously. What the fuck is wrong with him? Yes, it is a big deal. It seriously is a big fucking deal."_

_"It's whatever. It's fine."_

_"What the Hell? It's not fucking 'fine', man, it's not fine at all."_

_"Don't worry 'bout it, dude. It's okay."_

_"No, it's fucking not. You need to get out of there."_

_"Yes, it is. And I can't go anywhere, I'm on lock down. For all of vacation, and even after that. School, straight home. Total lock down, man."_

The thought of him being stuck there made Dylan feel a little more than uneasy, and he found himself tempted to start talking in circles again, because what the fuck else could he say?

"_Fuck that…christ….where's your Stepmom?"_

_"Here. She watches and makes sure I don't leave when my dad's not around. You know that."_

So damn sick.

_"I'm coming there. I'll say you forgot something at my place or something, and I need to drop it off."_

_"No, man, my dad won't let you in. He'll just grab whatever it is and close the door on you. And he'll probably get suspicious. Don't do that. Look, I'm fine, it's fine. It's whatever. It's okay."_

The fuck.

_"No, god fucking damnit, it's not okay, Evan. Seriously, that's fucking fucked up. What the Hell. Can't you tell your mom or something? Fuck it, go live with her. Tell her what he's doing. Get his ass landed in jail, go live with her. Get away."_

_"I can't tell her, dude. If I tell her, he'll tell her about the pot. And then she'll probably hate me. She can't know, man, then she won't want me anymore, either. She's all I've got."_

Dylan knew that wasn't true. He knew that Evan's mom was totally, sickeng-ly adoring, and would never kick him out. He was sure…He didn't know her that well, for she lived a few towns over, but…

"_No, she won't. She totally adores you, man. She wouldn't do that. You don't even have to tell her about it right away, anyway. Just go there. Say you wanna live with her. Say you and your piece of shit father don't get along or whatever."_

_"I'd have to change schools again then. Plus he'd tell her. I seriously can't risk losing her and her part of the family, they're literally all I have. And it's fine. It's seriously fine. I'll get used to this. It's whatever."_

_"No, Evan. This'll just keep happening more and getting fuckin' worse. You can't stay, you have to get out. My mom stayed, back when she was younger, and she ended up with a fucking gun to her head. It'll just keep getting worse. You can't stay."_

_"Oh well. It's fine. I'll get used to it, really. I deserve it, anyway."_

Dylan felt his stomach drop for about the thousandth fuckin' time that day and wondered what the Hell made that feeling occur in your body, anyway? Did you adrenaline glands release some sort of shitty chemical or something that made you feel like that? Because it was really starting to piss him off.

"_What the Hell? You 'deserve' it? How could you possibly deserve it?"_

"I just do. I really, seriously do deserve it. I'm just getting what I deserve, it doesn't matter."

_"No, you don't. No, no, no, no, fuck no. At the risk of sounding like fuckin' Nancy Grace, this is the last fucking thing you deserve. So, you made a mistake? You're fucking human, for God's sake. A teenager, non the less. You don't deserve this, even remotely. That's so fucked up."_

_"But I do, man. I really, really do. It's,..fuck. I seriously fucking do."_

_"No. Stop it. Shut the fuck up, Evan, you don't 'deserve' this, seriously. Don't blame yourself for your dad's sick goddamned mind."_

_"Whatever. Fuck, just whatever. It's whatever. It's over, it's not a big deal._

_"I'm coming to get you."_

And they were back to this again, because at least he felt like he could do something when they did this.

_"You know I can't. I'm on hard-core lock down. Shit, I really need a cigarette. "_

_"Me too…dude, make sure to bandage any open cuts on you. Don't need your ass getting infected or some shit. "_

_"Yes, mother."_

_"Fuck you."_

_"Maybe later."_

_"Shut up."_

He snorted a little, and grabbed a discarded tissue from beside the computer to wipe at the blood squeezing from his dismantled finger nails.

_" I need to go, though. I feel kinda dizzy and shit, I should lay down. And my Stepmom wants to get on. I'll talk to you later, man."_

_" Okay, bye. I have my phone on and shit, so."_

_"Okay, bye."_

_"Bye."_

Dylan kind of stared at his screen for a few minutes after Evan signed off, dabbing at his bloody fingers and the keyboard on which it had smeared, and only finally moved when Georgie threw the front door open, smelling like smoke and demanding his temporary guardian make him food. Dylan flipped him off, but obliged anyway, feeling a little shaky when he stood up from his chair. He unearthed a questionable package of Bisquiqe from the cupboard, and managed to make shitty-looking pancakes without burning the goddamned house down. He'd made an extra for himself, more out of force of habit than anything, and after serving Georgie, who commented on the "piece-of-fucking-shit-looking-excuse-for-pancakes", and received a "eat it or don't eat" in return, found himself staring at it. He attempted to pick his fork up a time or two, even cut up the food on his plate, but couldn't bring himself to stomach any. His insides were still turning and the mere thought of food disgusted the shit out of him, and he felt himself gag a little as he placed a piece of the offending substance on his tongue. He closed his eyes in an attempt to settle himself, but found himself staring at an image of Evan getting thrown against a wall, and ended up spitting it back out, feeling nauseous. He chucked the mashed-up remains of his pancake in the garbage, and lit a cigarette, not bothering to go outside to smoke like he did when his mother was home. The calming sensation he'd expected from the nicotine was only half-assed however, and he couldn't help the stubborn churning deep in his gut.

Jesus Christ, he was turning into motherfucking Sarah Palin.

**THE MOTHER FUCKING LINE WILL NOT SHOW UP SO LINE LINE LINE LINE THIS IS PISSING ME OFF WHATTTT THE FUCKKK LINEEE**

Well fuck, back here again. Goddamned Hell Hole of a school.

The first day of school after the vacation found Dylan knowingly sipping at this coffee, maybe a little more awake than he should be on a school morning, though just barely. He was maybe a little anxious to see Evan again, and maybe a little hesitant because he wasn't sure what he was going to see. He'd gathered from conversations that occurred throughout the week that Evan had spent his vacation holed up in his room, smoking out the window, listening to music with the shades drawn and avoiding interaction with the outside world. He'd heard, while drifting in and out of consciousness in past health classes, that results of persistence child abuse often include depression and shit like that, but he wasn't really sure what to think because Evan was fucking Evan, and it's not like you ever had an inkling of what he was thinking about or feeling or whatever, anyway. It didn't really matter anyway, he supposed, because nothing really did, and jack-shit could really be done. His mind and stomach had continued to churn a lot over the weekend with something that he would never admit to be worry, and he couldn't help but wonder what, exactly, they were supposed to fucking _do_. And then morning had rolled around again and his mom had called and said she was coming home soon and he realized that, _fuck,_ it was Monday and wondered if, maybe, his family was a little dysfunctional for having totally skipped Thanksgiving the way they had, but not really caring, either way. And now, later, but not nearly late enough, in the morning, he found himself standing at his typical place by his locker, half-heartedly smashing his fist against the damn thing and wishing, for the thousandth time that day, that he didn't have to fucking be there. He inhaled as his jean fabric grinded against his hip, and fidgeted at his sleeves that felt suffocating and itchy against the crooks of his arms and too tight around his biceps.

"Stupid fucking thing" he murmured under his breath, stubbornly turning the dial again and wondering, for the ten millionth time, why, the fuck, he'd gotten stuck with the damn thing.

"Jesus Christ, Dylan, don't you ever run out of shit to say to that damn thing?"

Welp, fuck, there went his stomach again, spazzing all over the place and god fucking damn it, he was so damn tired of that feeling. He had visibly started when the familiar voice had arrived behind him, he knew, because he was a jumpy little fuck lately. He hesitated a little before turning around, because he wasn't sure if he wanted to see what he was about to, but knew he couldn't really avoid it, anyway. When he did turn, he wasn't really sure if the feeling he got was a sickening sort of disappointment that what he had expected was, in fact, correct, or some sort of shock. Either way, Evan's appearance merely helped to solidify the whole ordeal as _real_ in some new dimensions and, damn it, his mind was finally starting to catch up to the fluttering in his chest, after all.

Evan stood at his normal monstrous height, hunched over and the typical resemblance of his oh-so-graceful early morning self, though maybe he looked kind of thinner. Dylan had never been good at deciphering that kind of shit, but it defiantly looked as such. A light purple bruise that he hadn't even bothered to try and cover stretched across his right cheek, red across his jaw. A mostly faded black eye was still damn well noticeable, and another blue-ish splotch crept up in his hair line. He had bags under his eyes, and was standing kind of oddly, shifting a little with his long sleeves and long pants and holding his bag kind of away from his body at an awkward angle. Dylan stumbled over his words a little, distracted by his observations and utterly detesting the knowledge that hung heavily on his chest.

"I…it's a piece of shit. "

"Really? I hadn't noticed."

"Shut the fuck up."

"Move."

Evan moved and lightly shoved Dylan aside, swinging his bag to the ground in the process. Dylan pretended not to notice the way he moved stiffly and jerkily and the way he cringed a little when he shuffled and swung his arm back up to his body. Dylan slid down the wall next to said locker and glanced again at the bags under Evan's eyes.

"Where's your coffee?"

Evan didn't tear his focus from the locker dial in front of him.

"Nothing to put it in. My dad broke all the drink container things and took the only good one left. "

"Oh."

A stiff beat where Dylan almost wished he hadn't asked.

"Want mine?"

"I'll live."

Dylan shifted again, absent mindedly bashing his head against the stiflingly off-white wall behind him and closed his eyes, wishing to every fucking extent of Hell that he could be back in goddamned bed asleep and not have to ever get the fuck up again. The fluorescent lighting of the high school's hallways, however, insisted on bleeding through his eyelids, and he found himself entertaining, for the thousandth time, the thought that the place looked damn well like a Mental Insinuation, and suitably so. He bleary cracked his eyes again, looking up to find Evan still fiddling with his locker, and seeming to be having some more trouble than usual with the damn thing. Instead of offering help, which he knew would likely only end up fucking the damn thing up more, Dylan chose instead to lazily rolls his head to the side, allowing for an easy side view of Evan while still generally reaming out of the ceiling light's direct glare. He almost found himself wanting to laugh a little as Evan spewed out a few obscenities, and maybe would have entertained the thought a little further, had he not then noticed the sleeve of Evan's sweater swishing gracelessly down his thin arm as he propped his knee against the offending hunk-of-metal in another vain attempt to pry it open. Now, it is to be noted that just about everyone in South Park was, what would conventionally be considered, pale. Duh. For fuck's sake, it fucking snowed a good ten out of twelve months there, it wasn't as if anyone was expected to be otherwise. But as normal as 'pale' was within the town's inhabitants, Evan still, somehow, always managed to be paler. Paler, in fact, to the point that his skin nearly looked translucent sometime. The kid was lucky enough to be blessed with a clear enough complexion, un-like Dylan himself who harbored a nasty array of pock-marks that seemed just dead-set on inhabiting his face for the rest of his life, but found it just about impossible to wean away notice of any blemish or marking, whenever they happened to appear. If anything even slightly amidst found its way onto Evan's skin, it was about as inconspicuous as the boner Stan Marsh and Kyle Brovoflski harbored for each other, and, if left uncovered, stuck out like a godamned homosexual at the Play Boy Mansion. So it wasn't really as much that Dylan was observant, but rather the fact that he wasn't blind, that the familiar marks adorning Evan's arm caught his attention and snapped him into something resembling consciousness.

"Dude, what's that?"

"What's what?" Evan was still intently focused on the locker dial, and didn't really appear to be paying much concern to Dylan's question.

"Those. On your arm." Evan visibly stiffened a little at this, though he didn't bother to pause in his task, or really react beyond shrugging a little, maybe almost a little too indifferent to the entire thing and maybe like he almost expected it a little.

"Nothing important."

"Razor?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yeah."

Evan snorted a little, as if Dylan's response were almost humorous, and finally managed to swing the locker's door open.

"Yes."

"Why?"

He wondered if maybe the manner in which they were having this conversation was a little too practiced, too casual and nonchalant, and maybe if that was a little sick or fucked up or whatever the Hell else phrase could be used to depict what was wrong with them. Evan often didn't give a reason, regarding not only his masochistic tendencies but anything he did for that matter, and most of the time, Dylan didn't notice or ask. But he still couldn't really seem to shake this nervous feeling that had seeded in his stomach over the vacation, and maybe he was just a little bit edgy and a little bit curious and a little more prone to anxious observations, and he couldn't really tame that, despite any efforts to do so. Now that he actually thought back upon it, he'd come to realize that he wasn't sure if he'd ever actually asked Evan 'Why' he tended to do this to himself, or end up with that marking, and he kind of wondered if Evan knew how to answer such a question. However, as was wont to happen to Dylan in life and even more so to piss him off, the most Drama Movie of the Year-like and inconvenient moment felt utterly inclined to occur at the most infuriating second, and this time chose to manifest itself as the other members of their 'group' fabricating from some other point around the school, and stopping to congregate around Dylan's locker before Evan had a moment to answer. Dylan promptly smacked his head back onto the concrete wall behind him, and began to wonder if the place really was a mental institute, after all, and kind of found himself feeling as if it really should be.

"Hey." Henrietta issued her usual bland, non-committal greeting, while Georgie, who trailed behind her, didn't bother to offer even that much.

"Hey." Evan answered her back robotically, finishing rearranging something in Dylan's locker. Dylan merely grunted, and allowed his head to lull to the side a little. He wondered what Henrietta would say upon Evan's turning around, and he wasn't really sure that anyone wanted to deal with her this early in the morning. He shut his eyes again, wondering if maybe he should just skip first-

"The fuck happened to your face?"

He promptly snapped his eyes open again, as subtle an action as that may have been, and looked between the two. Evan didn't bat an eye.

"Got in a fight. Some meat-head conformist, felt like being a dick and trying to beat on me for 'looking like a fag' or whatever."

Henrietta crinkled her nose at this and Georgie didn't really react at all. Dylan exhaled through his nose loudly.

"Douche-bag conformists. Gonna end up working at Wal-Mart someday, if that."

Typical Henrietta comment. Typical indolent expression paralyzing Georgie's face. Typical sterile hallways and irritating voices and forced conversations and people and thoughts and tired eyes and ignorance and the typical looking past the black and blue and irritated red and the obvious truth and typical falseness and over-willingness to believe and look away and the typical lies and whatever else. So damn typical. Dylan smashed his head against the wall again. It was so fake, fake, fake and he hated how it seemed like no one else noticed or cared and how he seemed to be the only one who couldn't fucking stand it. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

"Mmm." Evan murmured, pretending that he didn't cringe as he bent over to retrieve his bag. Dylan suddenly found himself fighting an urge to punch a locker or throw a fit or _something, _because it was all _one big act_. He stayed put and acted like he was just another one of the indifferent ones. So _fake._ "Not a big deal, anyway."

**LINEEEEEEE LINETY LINNNEEE I'M SUPPOSED TO BE DOING HOMEWORK RIGHT NOW THIS IS A LINE LINEEEEE**

Whenever Dylan went into the upstairs boys bathroom to do whatever he had to do, he tended to ignore Tweek Tweak, huddled in his usual stall on the far end, hands shaking so hard that he often dropped his needle or his little plastic baggie over and over again onto the linoleum floor. He ignored him as he shut himself in the stall and ignored the sounds of him clattering about and ignored him leaving to go back to class, the bat-shit insane, but 'innocent' kid, with fresh track marks or powder under his nose, and ignored him the way he wanted to be ignored.

When he walked into -or at least past- the same corner story every day after school, he pretended he didn't see Kyle Brofovlski, perfect little straight-A, genius ass, down-to-earth, sarcastic, fuck-that-shit, overly-kind and good fucking humanitarian Jew, as he bought disgusting amounts of candy and chips and artery clogging bullshit, disappeared somewhere for a considerably short extent of time, and then returned, with nothing but the wrappers, to lock himself in the bathroom for a good five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes, and reemerge with shaking hands and chewing a couple of pieces of gum. He pretended the way Kyle wanted him to pretend.

He turned his head when he saw Wendy, with her perfect hair and perfect teeth and perfect looks and perfect mind and perfect grades and perfect car and perfect life and prefect love for herself and her perfect 'strength' and her perfect ability to speak her mind and annoying voice and beliefs in feminism or whatever bullshit, waddling around and flinching when she sat and ducking her head at the mentions of 'sex' and 'rape' and 'sexual abuse' and 'abortions' and 'prostitution'. He turned his head at her tendency to cringe whenever a male raised his voice and the money she tended to come into for no apparent reason at all. He turned his head the way she wanted him to turn his head.

He closed his eyes whenever Butters, of all fucking people, mother fucking Hello-Kitty goddamned loving, 'Oh, Hamburgers', rainbows and kittens and butterflies fucking _Butters, _stumbled into him in the Hallway, the way you could almost always smell sharp things on his breath from across the damn room, whenever he walked around the back of the school to smoke or whatever and caught a glimpse of Butters digging out yet another bottle from his apparent secret stash, though there were already empty ones -and full, for that matter- clinking around in his back pack and the way his eyes were always blatantly unfocused and hazed and the way his "Gatorade" bottles did not smell as is they contained Gatorade at all and the way things often spilled out of his backpack and sometimes spilled over onto something of Dylan's. He closed his eyes the way Butters wanted him to close his eyes.

And this is how it always went. They kept up their fake fronts and kept them up and kept them up and they did it perfectly, or perfectly enough, anyway, and no one else ever suspected a thing, and Dylan felt maybe like he shouldn't know the way he did. He was the only one who ever saw these things, and he kept it to himself and turned his head because there was nothing else he could, or cared to do. Everything was these fake fronts, _everything_, and there was nothing anyone could do but let it be, because they were _everything_ and everyone. He felt as if he was stuck amidst an episode of Dawson's Creek or Degrassi most of the time, and it really wasn't a mystery as to why, a sentiment that was always reinforced at the sight of Evan's often bruised face. But it was, he realized, as it was, and if he had to live in a world of facades and bullshit and flimsy cardboard and paper, then he'd live in it. He often felt like he was made of nothing but faulty wallpaper himself, and he knew that no matter how much a non-conforming rebel he ever came to be, he'd still fit perfectly amongst the world of thin glass and faulted pavement and smoke that barely hid the truth, because that's all it ever was, in the end.

One big pretty façade.


	3. Chapter 3

**Where Did I Go Wrong? **

**A/N- I know that it's really short. My B.**

Words. Or, more precisely, the emptiness of words.

Words, words, words, words, words, words. The basis of everything we know it. The only way we speak, though all we ever seem to do is speak and speak and never say a thing. Words and words and he always felt as if he hadn't said a thing. Just over millions of words. Words are empty, but we speak and think in them, so he supposed everyone was empty, as well. He felt like no one ever said anything anymore, if they ever had in the first place. It exhausted him beyond any extent he could ever express, and when he tried to he merely found himself driving his point of the faultiness of words home and simply stopped. He often questioned how much power words were even capable of holding, but knew it didn't matter because in these paper towns, words were no more than marred paper, cheap colored lights, smoke that barely managed to hid the truth. He was sure he'd go crazy if he heard " How 'bout this weather" one more time, or heard one more tight, stretched, forced laugh or exchange about the prices of meat at different stores. It was idiotic, really, how fake and suppressed and flimsy and fuckin' empty words were. We like to think of ourselves as intricate creatures, so the fact that we lack any ambition to alter the fact that we are seemingly incapable of managing a successful means of communication was beyond him. We like to think of ourselves as intricate, mult-dimensional creatures, so maybe we like to speak in cryptic, tactful shit in a lame attempt to convince ourselves that that is even remotely true. Maybe people were just stupid or didn't know why they did any of it. Why almost everything they said in their lifetimes meant nothing. That's why he chose not to speak often. He felt as if he had single-handedly clichéd every work in the English language. Whoopsy. He felt as if every word in existence was clichéd and used. He couldn't find words that meant anything, and he didn't want to be one of those people who talked and talked and never said a thing. Who talked to fill silence or because they just didn't know what else to do. Fine=fucked, just tired= tired of everything, nothing=everything, and so on and so forth. Evan hated words and their blatant incompetence, and he was just so _tired_.

He found himself rolling this thought over in his head as he woke up to his phone vibrating loudly a mere five minutes after he'd passed out. Before he had time to get pissed at whoever had the audacity to wake him up at the ungodly hour of the night it must have been, he rolled over and realized that later afternoon sun was, in fact, streaming through the windows, and he had simply passed out on his couch in the middle of doing whatever, because it had been that long since the last time he slept. He checked to find a poorly typed text message from Evan, telling Dylan to call him. He sighed at the familiar dropping feeling in his stomach, and rang Evan's number, putting the phone to his ear and praying that more shit wasn't wrong because godamn, why was everything so fucked?

The moment Evan picked up the phone, Dylan could tell he was high again. He didn't really know if he could blame him.

"Hi."

"Hellloooooo"

"You wanted me to call?"

"Come smoke with me, dude."

"Where are you?"

"Meh houuuuusseee."

"What happens if someone comes home?"

"They won't, they're both at meetings or whatever 'till late."

"Oh."

"Come over then, let's smoke this shit up, motha fucka."

Dylan felt around his pockets for his keys and a few dollar bills.

"Ten minutes"

"Cool, dude."

Dylan flipped closed his phone and scribbled a haste note to whomever that wouldn't really be noticed, anyway. He sighed and exited the front door. Evan smoked weed a fair amount, that had always been a given. During the "bad" times, though, that was when he did so compulsively, often going just about an entire week, sometimes two, without being sober for more than a few moments. The "bad" times were actually only really indicated _by_ the increased drug usage, as Evan was never really one to admit to much of anything. But that's how it went. It was Evan's job to be fucked up and Dylan's to handle him. Sometimes Dylan got this nagging feeling that maybe Evan was doing more than weed sometimes, but he never really said much of anything. It was part of his job, his place, what they'd been doing for God knows how long- knowing but not knowing. Silence with mutual knowledge hanging in the air but a silent agreement to act ignorant. A tendency to notice but act otherwise because knowing and acknowledging weren't what they did. Because they couldn't and didn't know how to deal, anyway. That's how it was. He played dumb because that's all he ever did. Play dumb. He wondered if it was actually _making_ him dumb, all this acting. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad.

He saw that the outer front door was left ajar when he pulled into Evan's driveway, something Evan was wont to let slide when he was home alone. Dylan gracelessly slammed his car door closed, tactlessly walked into the house as he was used to, and climbed the steps to Evan's room.

"Duuudeeeeeee" was Evan's undeniably poetic greeting, extenuated by his holding out a bong in the dim lighting of the room. The lights were out and the curtains were pulled, the sides sloppily hanging away from the frames of the windows and allowing mid-afternoon sunlight to bleed in and just barely illuminate the bull shit and clutter all over the floor. Dylan snorted.

"Well put, I'm sure Robert Frost would be proud."

"Brooooo" Dylan lolled, hanging off of the side of the bed. Fuck, he was _really_ high. "Robert Frost is dead. Duh. Well, I think he is, anyway…wait, is he?"

"The way you're going, you'll be able to fucking ask him yourself in a few years."

"What, dude?"

"Nothing."

Dylan plopped onto the dark bedspread and tore the bong from the other's hands, taking his own hit off of it and holding the smoke in his lungs. He leaned back onto the spread, finally exhaling when Evan broke into a random fit of laughter. It startled the shit out of Dylan, prompting a shock that melted into a lack of knowledge as to what do with himself and awkward indolence on his part. Evan was laughing quite hard, and Dylan wondered if it was sad that he was so utterly shocked by the sound of his friend actually LAUGHING for once, and the fact that he was only doing so because he was so fucking high he probably didn't know his ass from his elbow. Woop-dee-da. Dyaln retrieved a lighter from Evan's bed side table and began flicking a flame on and off, wondering if maybe he could fabricate some sort of metaphor based on the action, but not caring either way.

"What's up, man?" He asked as if it where an entirely casual question, as if he wasn't asking just about _everything- _why was Evan doing this, what was wrong, where, how, why, what in the fuck.

"Huh? Oh, I dunno, nothing' much, really." Dylan aimlessly flicked at the lighter in response.

"Why you smoking' so much lately then, man?" It was a little more direct of a question than he was used to- he usually didn't ask because what could he say, anyway? What would it matter? But he was high, and his withering sense of consequence, reality, conventionality and common knowledge diminished along with the small amount of tact that he did actually posses ( if he possessed any at all), and it didn't really seem that Evan was wont to fabricate any sort of practical excuses or plausible diversions at the moment, anyway.

"Eh. 'cause it sucks."

"What sucks?"

"Everything."

Dylan wanted to ask why, what 'everything' was, and why he chose now to smoke because everything always sucked anyway. But, in the process of formulation some sort of response, he realized how true the statement actually was, all tact and poeticism aside, and decided that it wasn't worth asking. He would receive no decipherable response and it didn't really matter, anyway. He instead got distracted with contemplating _why_, exactly, everything sucked the way it did. Because it wasn't just them, it wasn't just there. It was everything, everywhere, everyone, the planet, the population. Everything sucked and a majority of people- in fact, just about everyone, hated everything. The earth was a largely unhappy place, and he couldn't help but wonder why. Human beings were terribly flawed, he knew, but were they truly flawed to the extent that any measure of reasonable happiness or feelings of contentment were unattainable to the majority of them? Maybe the extent of happiness that was expected in a typical, satisfied person was an exaggeration, an over-estimation, another standard set too high. Something the masses would never, realistically, experience, but always strive and strive and reach for.

Well look at him, Mr. fucking Socrates. Pessimistic or realistic, that was always the question with him.

He looked away from the lighter and realized then that Evan wasn't even attempting to hide his sliced up arms at the moment, and took another deep hit off the bong at the sight of it. He wondered if he should mention something to him, but realized that it really didn't matter, anyway. Nothing changed, nothing ever changed and nothing would ever change. He could spew words and words and talk and talk and ask and ask and it wouldn't matter a fuck, anyway. And maybe, just a little, he almost understood Evan's compulsion to do shit like that, anyways. Scream through your fingers. The feeling that words didn't mean shit, anyway, and were never loud enough to make a sound, to make anyone listen. To use your body, as opposed to your voice, because words weren't loud enough, and nowhere days, you've gotta scream to be heard. And as much as the biggest fear may have been being found out, as much as you want to be left well enough alone and as much as you're doing this only because you _have_ to, as much as you hate the idea of anyone knowing, of 'help', all you ever want to do is scream most of the time. Bloody fucking murder. But what was anyone going to do, anyway? Did it really matter? (nope.)

This town had started to grow bars to Dylan, and he wasn't really sure what to do about it. He wondered how disappointed he'd be when he finally got to leave and realized that nothing changed. That he could change the scene all he wanted, but it wouldn't change the fucking situation. That he didn't know how to change shit, that maybe nothing ever really changes, and everyone just fucking throws up their hands and learn to adapt. That nothing can fucking change. That the bars are inside of him.

It felt hopeless to him. Everything, anything. The only word that ever came to mind was "hopeless", because nothing would ever change, and maybe that's all he or any of them ever needed. Was for his shit to change. Really change. He sometimes almost found himself wishing he was one of those common people. The ones who didn't know any better and didn't give a fuck. Who didn't feel like everything was fucking bull and who didn't feel as if they were going out of their mind. Maybe he was just losing it. Maybe he always had been. It didn't really matter, anyway. He could bitch and moan all he wanted and anyone could promise him that "it gets better'' all they wanted, and they could promise "change" up the ass, but ultimately, words were just words. Any alteration anyone referred to would just be the superficial kind, the false kind. The scenery and the names and the ages and the date on the calendar, but nothing else. He could talk to anyone and spill every tangled thought that popped into his mind and he could tell and scream and talk, talk, talk, talk, talk all he wanted, and anyone else could spew this and that and any words they wanted in any way at him and circumstance at him, but nothing could make any of it matter. Nothing could make them true or appt. He wondered what he was still doing around.

"Dude" Evan was obviously aimless at this point, in thought and speech, and didn't really seem intent on remaining coherent. "Dude", He repeated as he let out another dry laugh. Dylan jumped at the sound, like a match striking a card over the rustling of dead leaves. He kind of wished he would stop doing that. "I fucking love this shit. Almost makes it all fucking sufferable. The constant jumping through hoops and bullshit." Dylan didn't really know how to respond, if he was expected to. You'd think that after all his time of dealing with soap opera bullshit like this, he'd be better at it, at least a little more graceful. He wasn't. So he just grunted. Evan didn't seem to mind his lack of proficiency, at least not enough to comment upon it. Dylan turned his head back to observe Evan in his abrupt silence, and found that the chapped smile had slid from his face, replaced by a more familiar and fitting pensive sort of glare. Evan finally sighed.

"Have you ever thought about killing yourself?", as if it he were asking Dylan what kind of coffee he wanted to order.

"What?" Maybe he was a little more tense than he 'should' be, or maybe that was just skewered perception. Either way, Dylan didn't exactly appear nonchalant.

"Have you ever thought about it? Killing yourself? How would you do it? I think I'd OD and slit my wrists. Down as many sleeping pills and tranquilizers as I could possibly get my hands on, first. Then every other medication I could find, down it all with a bottle of vodka and some rum and wine. You think it'd work?"

Dylan remained relatively silent for a while, almost as if he wanted to say something, but couldn't bring himself to do so. He realized that that seemed to happen a lot.

"I don't know." He seemed almost unwilling to speak, like he wanted to change the subject, but couldn't quite think of how. "I dunno. Maybe. Probably. I might do it the same way you describe. Is that cliché? I wouldn't want to be a cliché. Maybe blow my brains out or hang myself. Maybe jump from a point so high I couldn't possibly survive. That'd be the best, I think. Jump from the top of a building or buy a junker and just drive off of a cliff"

"Do you think it'd work? Any of it?"

Dylan turned his head a little more to look away from Evan and more so at the wall. The paint on it was badly chipped.

"No. Yes. I don't know. The human body is fuckin' crazy man, you can endure a lot more than you'd think"

"I don't think I'd want to fail a suicide attempt" Evan continued, still behaving as if the entire conversation was entirely casual, common place. It kind of seemed to Dylan that they tended to have conversations like this in a way they shouldn't. " I think that'd be pretty shitty. I dunno what'd be worse- waking up in the hospital, or waking up right where you passed out, realize that you'd failed and no one would even know."

"I think the latter would be worse." Dylan flicked the lighter back on and off. "Because maybe, if I woke up in the hospital or whatever and someone knew, at least maybe there'd be a chance for something to change." Evan didn't say anything. Dylan didn't expect him to. Dylan brought the lighter close to his skin and then pulled it away again, wondering what would happen if he just leaned over and touched the fire to the drapes and the whole place went up. If either of them would even bat an eye or bother to move. He doubted they would.

"You know" Evan was drawling a little at this point, philosophical and thoroughly pensive to an unnecessary though slightly appropriate extent. The weed and maybe the atmosphere were making him a tactless and bluntly honest figure, like a small child who has yet to conceive the concept of censoring one's self, and says what he will without another thought, simply because he doesn't know any better. "I think about it a fair amount. It's kind of a corrupted infatuation. Fuck up on a test? Oh, it doesn't matter, I'll just be dead soon, anyway. Bleed a little too much from cuts or whatever else- doesn't really matter, hey, maybe I'll get to die. It's like I'm fucked up and unstable and crazy enough to be a freak, but never enough to quit." Dylan almost didn't know what to do with the statement, the plain regard to one of those things they just didn't talk about. Evan was neglecting to turn his head and play his part in the scene like he was supposed to, and Dylan didn't know what to do with that because he'd never learned any other way. Maybe this was why he found him so largely inept and lacking in desire to interact with other people. Because human interaction seemed to entitle saying everything but what you truly meant and accepting the most plainly empty words of other people and he'd never been able to do that,

Evan continued. "But…I don't know….I don't know why I never get around to it. I don't even know why I want to do it. Nothing is all that wrong, is it? I mean, I know I get my ass kicked a lot and shit, but so do a lot of people and they do just fine, it's not even that big a deal. I'm not sure what the fuck is wrong with my brain, dude. I don't know why shit's like this. Do you think anything would even change if I failed the attempt? Do you think anything could even change? Do you think it's possible? Sometimes I do, but a majority of the time I really fucking don't. I don't know if what I want to change is around me, if this town has just chewed me up and spit me out, or if it's me that's the problem at the core of it all. You know? Like inside of me or whatever. You can't really run from that, can you? I don't know. I genuinely just do not know. It doesn't really matter, anyway, but." The thought dawned on Dylan that he'd never heard Evan talk that much all at one in his entire life, and he didn't know what to say in the face of that fact. He never knew what to say, anyway. Evan didn't seemed phased by the other's silence, however, and continues on with his stream of consciousness. " I couldn't talk like this forever, and it wouldn't really make a difference. 's all bullshit. Fuck."

He leaned forward, as graceful and easy and fucking nonchalant as ever and grabbed a cigarette from the bedside table and the lighter from Dylan's hand. He took a long drag. "I just fucking hate it here." Dylan didn't know if he was referring to South Park 'here' or on earth/alive 'here'. Either way, he didn't bother to say much of anything. He knew it wouldn't make a difference if he did. "And I'm stuck somewhere between wanting to just fucking disappear, you know, cease to exist, not have to be a person or anything anymore. But at the same time harboring this weird fucking thing I have where I refuse to burn out without having made a point, a mark, something. It's like…I'm all bullshit contradictions. And I really kind of hope it's not just bullshit hormones or whatever, all of this. I feel like that's all anyone's ever going to attribute it to. I know it's not, not because I'm ignorant and mislead by my nativity, but because this has been going on for as long as I can possibly remember. I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to fucking do, but what can I do. It's fucked. Everything's fucked. And it always will be, I guess."

The sentiment range with stark, stiff truth, void of the usual illusions and intricate word choices and, in turn, plainly illuminating the lacking adequacy of syllables, words, sentences, paragraphs, languages. It lacked the falseness that everyone had become accustom to, and after all this time of pretending and turning their heads, Dylan realized that that's all they knew how to do anymore. The revelation hung in the silence, and already the air was attempting to thinking itself into a shield, a mask, into it's typical means of prompting doubt in the sincerity of anything spoken and masking everything with shaky reassurance and a willingness to not acknowledge like a thick perfume. Dylan always found himself waiting for the day that it wouldn't be able to cover up anymore, and shit finally spilled over. He always felt like he was punctuated, something in him had torn and was leaking out underneath his skin, encased behind his closed mouth and shut off eyes. He imagined that some day he'd burst like an over-inflated balloon, he would grow fat and strained with liquid and secrets and one day his skin would grow too taut and rip straight down the middle and he would totally burst. Boom. Splatter across the wall. He wondered what would happen then. Probably nothing. He laughed at the image

" I guess so." Evan blew smoke at the ceiling and stared at it as if he were trying to figure it out. As if he maybe wished he could do what it did. As if he were willing it to start hiding the truth the way it was supposed to. Dylan kind of wished it would stop doing that. He thought about it and realized he felt like he was made of the same stuff as smoke.

"I guess so."


End file.
